Shimano deore xt shifters

leevil knievil

The cassete shifter is sticking on the upshift, are they easy enough to strip down or is there a quicker way to stop this happening,not sure if it will be rust or crap stopping it I am guessing they are spring loaded. Any advice appreciated.

.blitz

Cables?

leevil knievil

I think the cables are ok, although on the rear cassette cable I think it has stretched slightly, because when on shifting down to the lowest gear it was slightly slack, since have adjusted with tensioner on shifter, should the cable be bow tight still in lowest gear or slightly slack, I do clean the cables where possible and will change if it's necessary.

cooldad

Is it the shifter, the mech, or the cable?

cooldad

leevil knievil wrote:

I think the cables are ok, although on the rear cassette cable I think it has stretched slightly, because when on shifting down to the lowest gear it was slightly slack, since have adjusted with tensioner on shifter, should the cable be bow tight still in lowest gear or slightly slack, I do clean the cables where possible and will change if it's necessary.

Tight, but I think that's the highest gear.

leevil knievil

Shifter

cooldad

Don't try and strip it down, you'll never get it back together. If anything take the back off and add a bit of oil. More likely to be cables though.

leevil knievil

Cheers cooldad will have a look, so when in the highest gear ( smallest on cassette) the cable still should be bow tight, maybe the cable has stretched, I know it would be easier to replace cable but would will try oil and tightening cable and try to re-index the gears if needs be just to get used to messing around, would prefer much to do my own fettling.

cooldad

Detach the cable from the mech and move the shifter (hold on to the end of the cable to keep it taught or the knobby end can get caught up in the shifter) and see if the cable moves easily and smoothly up and down. If not replace the cable.
If it is the shifter you should be able to tell at this point.
Also make sure the mech moves easily by hand - can sometimes get little stones caught in the spring.
The cable should be tight (they don't actually stretch - the outers can compress a bit though so the effect is the same).

leevil knievil

Cheers

baznav73

Cables do stretch, in the good old days you could buy cable stretching racks which you fixed one end of your cable to and then hang a weight on the other end, you used to do this overnight and the cables would be longer in the morning, these days most quality cables are sold as pre stretched but they still give a mil or two.

leevil knievil

The shifter was sticking, did as cooldad suggested and freed the shifter up with a bit of penn oil, but also the cable did seem tight in the housing so decided to replace, a very easy job to be fair and what a difference to the shifting good advice thanks all. I was surprised there was no cable wear but the cable housing must get full of crap or just degrade with time.

cooldad

99% of the time* new cables sort out shifting problems. Even if they look fine.

* totally made up stat.

cloudynights

if its the shifter sticking dont put oil in that only makes it worse, take the plastic screw out where you feed the cable in and spray some chain cleaner in there if you have a air line blow this through it, work the levers up and down then see where you go from there it could be full of cack so oil wont get rid of it chain cleaner or a degreaser will
hope this helps

cooldad

Except the OP seems to be sorted. Shifters rarely get full of crud but lube does 'dry out' - sticking a degreaser in will remove what's left.